333 Quotes by Karl Kraus

The esthete stands in the same relation to beauty as the pornographer stands to love, and the politician stands to life.

An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.

A historian is often only a journalist facing backwards.

In case of doubt, decide in favor of what is correct.

There is a cultural taste which tries very hard to get rid of the lice in a fur coat. There is another which tolerates the lice and thinks the coat can be worn with them in it. And finally there is a taste which regards the lice as the most important thing about the coat and consequently places the coat at the lice's disposal.

Love between sexes is a sin in theology, a forbidden intercourse in jurisprudence, a mechanical insult in medicine, and a subject philosophy has no time for.

Adults who still derive childlike pleasure from hanging gifts of a ready-made education on the Christmas tree of a child waiting outside the door to life do not realize how unreceptive they are making the children to everything that constitutes the true surprise of life.

News reports stand up as people, and people wither into editorials. ClichTs walk around on two legs while men are having theirs shot off.

If by day art is in the service of business, the evenings are devoted to the businessman's enjoyment of it. That is asking a lot of art, but art and the businessman make it work.